Yadlin to Obama: Visit Israel to allay Iran fears

Former MI head asks US president to publicly display US commitment to stopping Iran's nuclear program.

Amos Yadlin 311.
(photo credit:Ariel Jerozolimski)

Former Military Intelligence head Amos Yadlin on Saturday urged US President Barack
Obama to visit Israel to allay fears that Washington is not fully committed to
stopping the Iranian nuclear program.

“The US president should visit
Israel and tell its leadership – and, more important, its people – that
preventing a nuclear Iran is a US interest, and if we have to resort to military
action, we will,” Yadlin said in an opinion piece published in The Washington
Post.

Yadlin also asked the US to provide Israel with advanced military
technology and intelligence, contingent on Israeli pledges to delay a
strike.

Yadlin presented a five-point plan to the Obama administration
designed to convince “allies and adversaries alike that military action is real,
imminent and doable.”

He called on Obama to notify Congress in writing
that he reserves the right to use military force on Iran. He added that the US
should increase its military presence in the Persian Gulf, and should also
publicly commit to the security of its allies in the region.

Yadlin, who
left his IDF post in 2010 and is currently the head of the Institute for
National Security Studies, has been a vocal supporter of Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who have both hinted that Israel
would not leave the fate of Israel in the hands of the US.

“Israel cannot
afford to outsource its security to another country,” Yadlin wrote in the
Washington Post. “But if the United States wants Israel to give sanctions and
diplomacy more time, Israelis must know that they will not be left high and dry
if these options fail.”

Yadlin, one of the pilots who took part in the
1981 attack on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, hinted that Israel was capable of
hitting the heart of the Iranian nuclear program, but said Israel would need US
support “both the day after and the decade after a strike.”